White Palace Laundrymat (sic … the prevalent spelling on the internet, including on the "owner-verified" listing at Google Maps), 94 S. Broadway, is all about cleaning … except when it comes to the alley, where sign that once proclaimed with dignity, CLEANERS Laundromat & Alterations, now has an overlay of stickers, dangling wires and attention-hungry tags

it's easy to become jaded at how perception of Baker as an area changes over time; a few examples:

when it comes to nightlife, and those wanting to live near it, the "Baker District" seems to mean anything within a few blocks of Broadway from 6th to Alameda (you may find "South Broadway" used well north of Ellsworth, the north/south divide in the street naming system; however this has a historical basis)

on the evening of Wednesday, 18 Jan., State Representative Mark Ferrandino with State Senators Pat Steadman and Irene Aguilar held a town hall meeting at Hirschfeld Towers, 333 W. Ellsworth (Ferrandino’s previous town hall meetings had been held at the Athmar Library); approximately 40 people attended

Fancy Tiger Crafts’ spacious new home at 59 Broadway opened with the new year, and has been decorated inside with retro signage recalling the simplicity & self-reliance of the Old West, including these two classic ampersands; other decor in the new space includes vintage sewing machines, an old windmill, and of course the immensely varied stock of colorful fabrics, yarns, and myriad other craft supplies

(fifth in a series — signage on Broadway may last for decades or a few minutes; focusing on the typographic form of ampersands is both a simple delight and a way to illustrate Baker’s diversity)

Club 404 closed this week for a change in ownership, and presumably a change in style; no word yet whether it will retain its classic 3-dimensional sheet metal sign, with many empty light sockets suggesting a brighter past, but the ampersand here, in a halo of paste and a field of faded red, harks from an era when things lasted longer

(fourth in a series — signage on Broadway may last for decades or a few minutes; focusing on the typographic form of ampersands is both a simple delight and a way to illustrate Baker’s diversity)

The 5280 magazine has a guide to Denver neighborhoods. They seem to have ignored most other designations of neighborhood boundaries, mixed WWPNA and Baker together, and designated a "South Broadway"

South Broadway / Fringe:
Are they hip? Or grunge? One thing's for sure: They'll travel across town for a $2 PBR. Spend afternoons looking for the best tattoo, scruffiest beard, or largest ear piercing.

What do you think? Can you discern the boundaries in their "infographic"?

the Open Media Foundation, located just outside Baker at 7th & Kalamath, holds an annual online auction to support its non-profit work making media and technology services accessible to everyone; bidding for most items in this year's auction closes at different times on 2 December 2011 and at the moment many items have no bids at all; products & services from several Baker businesses are included:

if you’ve lived in Baker for several years, you’ve probably sensed it was gradually getting whiter, but did you also know that a lot fewer people live here than did ten years ago? here’s a detailed look at the changes and a hypothesis about what is driving them …